57:Now you seem to be talking in circles. In your previous post you said..."No. It never "just appeared". It existed at the very beginning of time/change. It never did not exist."

So, which is it?

Perhaps I should clarify the statement "It never did not exist", because I think its context, and therefore its intended meaning, is getting lost.

By that phrase, I'm simply reiterating that whatever existed at the beginning of time -- which I call the "cosmic egg" -- didn't appear out of nothingness. It didn't fail to exist prior in time to its existence. It doesn't exist in the same form now, but it is still with us in the sense that it has been changing, and what we see today is a product of that change.

What you should understand is that I don't see the universe as swimming in an ocean of time. Rather, the universe is that ocean (of spacetime). Time is simply a way of conceptualizing the change that is always happening.

If change is always happening...what caused this change to begin?

What cause this stuff that you claim is changing...to appear? To become?

So, the universe (by which I mean all of physical reality) is and has been changing, but it also has a start in the cosmic egg.

Imagine Doctor Who with his TARDIS, and he and his sexy but chaste companion have decided to travel back in time as far as they can. What I am saying is that they will finally reach an earliest instant which they can't travel beyond, because there is no longer any time (that is, change) to go beyond.

Once again you need to describe the agent of change....It just can't change with out something forcing it to change.

What the Doctor would see at that first instant with his TARDIS isn't "nothingness", but rather the cosmic egg (an existing thing, not nothingness) already in the act of changing into something else. Why is it changing? Because the cosmic egg is "in time". It is in its very nature to change, just as it is in the nature of the universe we see today to change.

What caused time to exist? The more you answer the more you fall deeper into your hole.

So, the cosmic egg is not eternal in the sense of being out of time. It is subject to time. It doesn't exist in some infinite past. It has a definite beginning to its change, and so it is a finite entity. It isn't anything like what people tend to mean by the word "Eternal".

eudaimonia,

Mark

If it had a definite begining to change..it had to have had a changer. perhaps you call it "time. Then what caused time to tick?

You sound like you are stuck in Thomas Aquinas's pre-scientific thinking about change. There is no need for change to be kickstarted. It is natural for physical entities to change. It is in their nature to do so.

What cause this stuff that you claim is changing...to appear? To become?

Once again you need to describe the agent of change....It just can't change with out something forcing it to change.

Entities are the agents of change. There doesn't have to be something that forces entities to change. They change all by themselves according to their natures, and in relation to other entities. For instance, nothing forces the Earth and Moon to form an orbital system. They do so because of their natures as massive objects.

What caused time to exist?

Time is just a way of conceptualizing change. Entities naturally change, so entities are the source of time.

The origin of the universe can have no bearing on the question of whether or not God exists until physicists have determined precisely what the universe is and how it came about (if indeed it did come about). Arguments must have sound premises, and sound premises are propositions that are known to be true beyond a reasonable doubt. Cosmogony is a subject about which very little is known beyond a reasonable doubt - far too little to provide us with sound premises.

Great! I'm saying that physical reality is the sum of what is. It is all the way down, and up, and around. Time is an aspect of physical reality, and so there is no time outside of physical reality. Whatever direction you can point in with real meaning, including time, physical reality is there.

A common mistake people make is in thinking that there's an "outside" of physical reality, or that there is a "before" the start of change.

Oh, I agree that The Universe is "Real," all right, i.e., It's NOT merely an Illusion ...

I also undersrand that "God" is "Real" -- though NOT a "Thing" composed of "Stuff" -- which ought NOT be so Difficult to "get," since The Universe isn't quite exactly made of "Stuff," per se, either ...

I think that what is REALLY "Real" is not so much "Stuff" as, "Events" ...

Great! I'm saying that physical reality is the sum of what is. It is all the way down, and up, and around. Time is an aspect of physical reality, and so there is no time outside of physical reality. Whatever direction you can point in with real meaning, including time, physical reality is there.

A common mistake people make is in thinking that there's an "outside" of physical reality, or that there is a "before" the start of change.

We EXPERIENCE "Stuff" as "Stuff," but it REALLY isn't such, is it ... ??? What is that "Stuff" composed of ... ???

Are you sure that you are even asking a meaningful question?

Asking what something is composed of is basically asking for a list of distinct parts. For instance, water is composed of hydrogen and oxygen atoms. At some point you will find it difficult to ask about parts, but that doesn't mean that it is composed of nothing at all. It simply means that you've left the context of composition.